A simple supper...

A couple of weeks ago a friend came round for dinner and a catch up. No pictures as it seemed a bit rude to be taking pictures of the food whilst cooking and generally having a good chinwag. The meal was delicious though (even if I do say so myself) and on that basis I will at least talk about the meal.

I wanted to do something which I could prepare while waiting for my friend to arrive and which would then be quick and easy to make whilst being sociable and starting on the wine.  

A leaf through the recipe books for some ideas and I came up with this:

Chicken and Mozzarella wrapped in Parma Ham, mashed potato and a Tarragon Beurre Blanc.

Mashed potato: take some nice floury potatoes (not waxy ones). Cut up into small pieces and place in a pan of water. Add some salt and bring to the boil. Then allow to simmer until the potatoes are just starting to break up. At this point, drain the water and add a a splash of milk, small knob of butter and some pepper and then mash it all together with your weapon of choice. I tend to use a fork if the potatoes are soft enough as, frankly, a proper masher is a pain to clean afterwards. Just make sure you’ve got rid of the lumps!

The main part of the meal is simplicity itself - take a chicken breast, put some generous slices of mozzarella on top and wrap the lot up with some Parma ham. Put this onto a baking tray and cook in the oven for 25 minutes (200C).

Tarragon Beurre Blanc sauce - finely chop 2 challots and place in a saucepan with 4 tablespoons of vermouth (or dry white wine) and 2½ tablespoons white wine vinegar. Bring the liquid to the boil and keep boiling and stirring until the liquid has almost gone. At this point turn the heat right down and then take 250g of cold butter and add it a chunk at a time. Put each chunk of butter into the pan and keep whisking. Add the next chunk just before the previous one has completely melted. The idea is to create an emulsion of butter and the remaining liquid. When all the butter is incorporated sieve out the challots and add 1-2 tablespoons of chopped tarragon. Be careful with the temperature as too cold and the butter won’t melt, too hot and the butter will separate (cool it down with an ice cube).

Place the mash and chicken on the plate and pour the sauce over the top. Thoroughly enjoyed by the pair of us with a good dry Muscat.

Duck with an Orange and Juniper Sauce

Duck and orange - a classic combination...So, why mess about with it?

Well, I don't know about you, but, personally I find that an orange sauce by itself can be a bit too sweet and the juniper just cuts through the sweetness without overpowering the duck. I'd love to show you a picture but for some reason I never took one...Sorry.


First up - the duck. I roasted off a couple of duck breasts. Just for the record I only had one hot with the sauce, the other was allowed to cool and made a wonderful sandwich the next day...

Anyway, take the breasts, score the skin a few times and then place skin side down in a medium-hot frying pan. Allow them to cook for 5 minutes so the skin is nicely coloured and then turn them over just long enough to seal the other side of the breasts. Take them out of the pan and place on a roasting tray and put in the oven 180C for 18 minutes for well done. I know some people say you can have duck rare but I prefer mine well done and these came out with just a hint of pink and very juicy still. Allow 10 minutes to rest before serving.


Secondly - the sauce. This will do enough for 2.  Take a pan and melt a decent sized knob of butter and then mix in some sugar. Add to this a generous slug of Triple-Sec, the juice of a large orange, half a dozen crushed juniper berries and 1 egg yolk (as you may have guessed - if I'm not baking I don't tend to measure much). Mix together well and keep mixing whilst the sauce reduces. When it has reached the right consistency (think runny honey) it's ready to use (just remember to pass it through a sieve in order to separate out the berries along with any bits of orange, pips etc...).

Enjoy!

Sweet Lamb

No, not the rally stage but rather an idea I had for cooking some lamb today. Very much a first try it turned out tasting very nice indeed, though it is far from a finished idea.

Simply, I was putting a half leg of lamb in a roasting dish and wondered what would happen if I put some light muscovado sugar over the top. So, lamb in the dish, a quartered onion, mixed herbs and then a covering of muscovado and into the oven...

When the lamb was cooked the sugar and herbs were scraped off into the dish and the lamb put to rest. The dish went onto the hob and the juices (with the dissolved sugar) brought to the boil. Splash of madeira and the whole lot was thickened up with a roux. This was then poured over the sliced lamb and mashed potato.

The lamb was certainly sweet but it wasn't overpowered by the sweetness. It was a very good piece of lamb anyway and just seemed lifted somehow.

However, not a finished dish. Too much sauce on the plate and I'd thickened it far too much. Tempted to try and simply thicken it with some corn flour next time.

Fish Pie and Béchamel Sauce.

Fish pie - I don’t know about any one else but this is indulgent comfort food for me. One of those lovely warm comforting dishes that is just great on a cold day. This is my generic fish pic recipe and will vary slightly each time depending on what ingredients I’ve got at the time. It’s actually quite simple, even though I know some people break out in a cold sweat at the mention of words like “Béchamel”.

I’ll describe the Béchamel sauce first then go on to describe how I do the fish pie.

Béchamel is one of Escoffier’s five mother sauces of French cuisine. Start off with a saucepan of milk and add a quartered onion and a few cloves. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Strain out the onion and cloves and keep the milk to one side. In another pan add equal quantities of flour and butter. Mix the flour into the butter as it melts and keep stirring on a low heat for a couple of minutes - you need to cook the flour out but you don’t want it browning. At this point slowly add in the milk whilst continuing to stir the mixture. The ratio of milk to flour and butter will dictate how thick the sauce is - adjust to suit as you prefer. 

Why is this called a mother sauce - whilst it is a sauce in itself, it is also the base for other sauces. Add some grated cheese to your Béchamel and it becomes a Mornay sauce for example.

Fiddly - maybe, but I think it is worth the effort.

Difficult - No!

Right, onto the fish pie. I’m not giving out any specific quantities as they will vary depending on the size of your pie dish and how many people you are cooking for. And, to be honest, I only measured out one thing at the beginning - I three quarter filled the pie dish with milk in order to see how much sauce I needed. That milk then went in a saucepan for the Béchamel.

Next, add some veg to the bottom of the dish. Yes, you read that correctly, vegetables! I like to add a bit of colour and texture and it makes the pie more of a complete meal in itself. Usually this will be some peas and a carrot which has been diced up into ~ ½ cm cubes. On top of this put the fish - put enough to cover the bottom of the dish and vegetables. Here you can use any fish you like. In this case I used some haddock, salmon and smocked pollock and then put the rest of the vegetables on top along with the onion I had strained out of the béchamel (remember to throw the cloves away though - don’t add them to the pie!).

Pour your Béchamel sauce over the top and give the dish a few gentle taps on the work top to make sure the sauce distributes evenly. Finally add mashed potato over the top of the sauce - just try not to make it too “thin” as I did here - bit too much milk added hence the way it looks. Whoops! Still, no one’s perfect and it tasted good.

Now just pop it in the oven. 45 minutes, 180C Fan and enjoy.

Ingredients:

Bechamel:

Milk

Onion

Cloves

Butter

Plain flour.

Fish Pie:

Fish (I used salmon, haddock and smoked pollock here but use whatever you like. Cod, prawns also work well)

Veg - your choice but I find peas and a diced carrot work well.

Béchamel sauce

Mashed potato